


Let Me Live

by songofproserpine



Series: AkeShu: The Thing That Feels [6]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Fix-It, M/M, Magical Realism, Mutual Pining, Psychological Trauma, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-24 17:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14359950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofproserpine/pseuds/songofproserpine
Summary: Ren's mouth moved without the careful filter of his thoughts. "Where were you when I needed you?"Akechi's eyebrows rose at such a statement. And then, to Ren's surprise, Akechi laughed. It was a soft, pleasing sound. "Well... I'm here now, aren't I? Shouldn't that be enough?"~A boy who resigned himself to a lonely fate meets a boy who defied destiny with every rebel breath.





	1. Prologue - I'm Looking Forward to Joining You, Finally

**November 20th, 20XX**

Goro Akechi watched as he extended his left arm and gently nudged the pistol against his friend's forehead. "Do you trust me, Ren?" His voice seemed to come from the end of a long, dark hallway—distant, distorted.

Silence followed the question, lasting long enough for Goro to doubt he'd even spoken at all. That happened sometimes, when he fell too deeply into his own thoughts that he couldn't quite tell what was spoken and what was felt.

But then, Ren said, "I do," and those two little words split every seam of Goro's tightly laced world.

The gun in his hand started to shake. Goro held on tighter, taking care to keep his finger off the trigger. Discipline. That's what he needed. Discipline, control. The cold calculation of a clever mind used only as a tool. ( _But I'm not, I'm not, I'm_ not—)

Goro's next question took both boys by surprise.

"Do you love me?"

His voice broke on the third word, like a carrion flower bursting into all its hideous bloom. Like a wound whose blood pushes up past a bruise to ooze out of torn, aching skin—that's what love was. Before, Goro would have said that love was little more than a fool’s devotion. But now, after all these months, after all that he and Ren had suffered and shared, love was something else. A wound that was no different from a scar. Even the word had to be scraped out of him. Now, love was a thought, a feeling, an ache, a needing that demanded excision—and yet, as stubborn as a weed, it refused to leave. Love's roots were just too deep to be denied.

And it was all Ren's fault.

As Goro sank deeper into the mire of his thoughts, Ren sat as still as a patient saint, saying nothing. His dark gray eyes stayed fixed onto Goro's face, and though he stared up from the receiving end of a gun, he showed no sign of fear or doubt.

"I do."

Only Goro was surprised by the answer this time. He felt the air leave his lungs, and a burst of static buzzed like a fury of hornets in his ears, drowning out all other sound but the panicked thrumming of his heart.

Ren leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the pistol's silencer. "I do," he said again.

Goro felt his knees grow weak. The fluorescent light from the interrogation room was blindingly white, too bright—as pale as bone, as insistent as a stab. Just the sort of light that gave him migraines. Ren's skin was pale, too—pale from the wicked, gleaming light; pale under the cuts and bruises on his swollen cheeks, a testament to his captor's cruelty; pale under his dark, wavy hair that was glossy like the shadow of a raven's wing, and as black as a moonless night could ever get.

The silence that followed Ren's reply was breathless and somehow painful. It was the silence of anticipation and dread knotted up into one wordless snarl. Goro didn't want to move. He didn't want to speak. He didn't want anything else but to stay locked in this moment, eye to eye, held breath to held breath, their hearts suspended, frozen together.

But then, Ren nodded once, shattering their shared stillness. "It's okay," he whispered, in that voice Goro loved and hated. That tender voice, so knowing, so kind. "Do it. I trust you."

He had no choice. Never. Not once. A child and a tool and a lover does as they are told.

Goro heard himself say, "I'll see you soon," and before he could even blink, he pulled the trigger and watched as blood seeped between Ren's dark eyes, burying his pale skin under a long scarlet cascade.

Ren’s blood was the purest, deepest red Goro had ever seen, like a shadow bleeding, like a heart's deepest core. And it was in that moment, though he could hardly understand why, though he could hardly put words to the thought at all, Goro knew that he had and would never love anyone as much as he loved Ren Amamiya.

Now all he had to do was bring the boy back to life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi so i basically can't stand the convoluted nonsense that is persona 5's plot in everything after futaba's palace, soooooooo this is my spite-fueled fix-it fic.
> 
> it's canon divergent and also somewhat compliant, but for the most part there's going to be more than a few big changes coming up. i hope they're to someone's liking besides my own. it's also written congruent with NIN songs, so it's somewhat of a songfic? idk. i'm just trying to have fun here, because goro deserves better.
> 
> eta: as far as charaterization goes... my ren was always a little subdued/quiet. he can be polite and courteous, but he's susceptible to sullen moods where he overthinks, and it's this dark mood that leads to his aggressive behavior when he sees someone in need of help. he's basically a storm of protective wrath but is also completely safe and caring. he gets better about expressing himself after moving to tokyo and meeting the rest of the PT, but just know that that's a reference point for his behavior.
> 
> thanks for reading!!


	2. Just

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A juvenile prodigy's terms of service does include youth as a necessary requirement." He cast an appraising look at Ren, eying him from head to toe. "Similar to a juvenile delinquent, I suppose."
> 
> Was that an insult? Ren tilted his head, thinking. "What do you want?" he asked, wondering out loud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter inspired by an [unreleased nin song called "just do it"](http://www.nin.wiki/Just_Do_It), cut from the downward spiral LP. i named it "just" as a nod to that title, and also as a pun for just as in righteous, fair, moral, etc.
> 
> /shia labeouf voice.

**Early March, 20XX**  
  
"You damn brat. I'll sue!"  
  
_Just do it._ The thought was immediate, instinctive. A reflex of rebellion.  
  
Ren's reply stayed stuck in his head in a silent stasis, made for him and him alone to know. Instead, he stared up at the man who'd spoken, his words slurred with fury and alcohol.  
  
The man seemed to know what Ren was thinking anyway. How else to explain the glare in his cold, dark eyes, or the clench of his teeth as wave after wave of hot, stinking breath flooded the small space between them?  
  
Frozen still and silent, Ren watched in mute horror as the man pressed his fingers to the wound on his head, pushing at the split skin until another fresh trickle of blood spilled down. From somewhere behind Ren, the woman whose cries for help had drawn him to this scene in the first place let out a low, terrified sob. It was only after the man began to pull at the cut on his head, pulling the wound open wider so that more blood coated his face, did Ren realize what was happening.

 _He's making it look worse than it is—and then he's going to blame it on me._ The man had already stumbled when Ren pulled him away from the woman, cracking his head on the metal guard rail that separated the sidewalk from the street.  
  
Again, as if sensing Ren's thoughts, the man's clenched teeth became a broad, leering grin. "You asked for it," he leered. "The both of you—you and that _bitch_." His laughter was a low, wet sound, a mixture of spit and his own blood. Monstrous, malicious. Ren's own blood chilled just to hear the man breathe.  
  
Ren's hands clenched into fists, but other than that, he couldn't move. Couldn't, _wouldn't—_ not with the woman sobbing behind him. Not with this man still poised as a clear and obvious threat. Not with the police still too far away to do anything.  
  
The man's eyes flicked down to Ren's hands, noting the tension laced through every bent finger. "Go ahead," he hissed. "Try it. I dare you."  
  
Every word the man spoke was bait that Ren knew better than to take. _Let him talk._ Let him leer and loom and hiss like the dumb bastard beast he was. Ren didn't care. He would stand his ground for as long as it took for help to come find them, and nothing this man said would change that.  
  
  
When help finally came, however, it was the man who did all the talking before Ren could even breathe a word. When help finally came, it was Ren who was dragged off, arm in arm with the policemen who'd come to investigate, despite the woman's stammered, tearful protests. When help finally came, it was Ren who found himself in need of it—but mercy had never been further from his reach.  
  
  
The next few weeks passed in a blur of sound and fury. Only snippets of images broke through the haze of Ren's thoughts, as if his brain were suddenly a sieve incapable of retaining anything. Just a few things stood out in cruel clarity: The low, cutting voice of the policeman explaining the situation to Ren's parents, repeating the story that only Ren knew wasn't true. The burning, churning heat of shame that radiated off his father's body, and the cold shiver of his mother's ever-icy shoulder.  
  
The sharp thwack of his father's knuckles cracking against his cheek. "How could you do this? How dare you?"  
  
His mother's blank face and impassive stare. "What's _wrong_ with you?"  
  
The school expulsion letter with its crisp, precise lettering, as if a machine had composed it instead of a human.

The gentle sigh of his uniform shirt as he tore it to threads in his pale, shaking hands.

The distant, muffled sound of his mother speaking on the phone to her sister. "I just don't know what to do with him."  
  
The quiet hush of the car wheels on the pavement. The thick, suffocating air on the drive over to the prefectural courthouse.

The murmur of the audience, the distant, bomb-like tick-tick-tick of the courtoom's clock.  
  
Everyone stared at him as he walked into the courtroom, but Ren couldn't see a single face. Not the prosecutor. Not the judge. His parents had refused to even come into the courthouse—as they said, it was bad enough they had to drive him there. And so Ren sat facing the judge and listening to the verdict alone, more alone than he had ever felt, despite the small crowd of witnesses.

"The defendant has been found guilty, and is hereby sentenced to one year's probation, to begin next month. This court is adjourned."  
  
His attorney—who was just there for show; just a prop on the shadow play of justice—nudged Ren to his feet. "You can leave now," he said.  
  
Ren stood up. A son and a tool and a criminal does as he's told. He could hear a low murmur of voices, but none of them were distinct; the sound was distorted, just a spiral of noise sinking into his ears, slipping through his thoughts, and falling down, discarded. Everywhere he looked he saw averted gazes and bowed heads.  
  
_Nobody cares at all._  
  
In the last row of seats, on the last chair closest to the aisle, Ren noticed a boy with light brown hair and deep, watchful eyes. He didn't look away when Ren caught his gaze—on the contrary, he seemed to perk up at the attention, as if holding the stare of a newly-created criminal was exactly what he wanted.  
  
Strange. And yet there was something pleasant about the other boy. Though he did not smile or say a word, he seemed to radiate a low, steady intensity, like he possessed a warmth that was not quite a kindness, but as stern and absolute as some divine messenger.  
  
But no, that couldn't be right. Ren was being stupid, hopeful. He lowered his head and let his hair fall in the way of his gaze, blocking the other boy from his sight.  
  
Once they were out in the hallway, Ren's defense attorney cleared his throat, breaking the silence like cracking an egg on a counter's edge. "Stay out of trouble, if you know what's good for you."  
  
Ren stared at him. He didn't even remember the attorney's name, and it didn't help that the man had the sort of face that easily bled into any crowd. Average height, average build, average looks. Even his voice was utterly forgettable. The court could've appointed Ren a cardboard cut out or a potted plant instead, for all the use this lawyer had been.  
  
His attorney nodded down the hall, towards the courthouse's main doors. "Don't keep your parents waiting."  
  
Ren watched him leave. He knew he should move, but the command never quite left his brain. His feet stayed frozen to the spot, his eyes fixed on the cracks in the tiled floor.

One year's probation.

Guilty.

 _Guilty._ And for what? For helping someone in need? For doing the right thing?  
  
Ren's mouth flooded with bile and bitterness. _Move_. _Leave. Get on with it. There's nothing else you can do here._ But his body refused to cooperate with his thoughts. He shut his eyes and took in a long breath.  
  
"You're Amamiya Ren-san, yes?" a soft, almost raspy voice asked.  
  
Ren turned around.  
  
It was the boy from the courtroom. Standing up, Ren could see that he had a tall, lanky build, and was surprisingly broad in his shoulders and chest. The other boy's outfit was crisp, immaculate, as if every piece of the ensemble was chosen with care. His tan, double-breasted coat, black and white striped tie, slim black slacks, with a pair of tight leather gloves covering his hands gave the boy the distinct air of professional elegance. He couldn't be a year or two older than Ren himself, but there was something almost pitifully mature about him, as if he'd been forced to grow up too soon and didn't quite know how to keep up with it.

Or maybe that was Ren projecting again.  
  
"Ah, forgive me. Where are my manners?" The boy held out his left hand. "My name is Akechi Goro."  
  
Ren stared at Akechi's offered hand. "You're actually talking to me?"  
  
Akechi's smile was small and brief. When it became clear that Ren wasn't going to shake his hand, he lowered it back down to his side. "So it would seem." Akechi reached into the breast pocket of his coat, where he withdrew a crisp, eggshell white business card. "You're not the first convicted criminal I've spoken with, nor will you be the last."  
  
He spoke in such a succinct manner that it was hard for Ren to tell if Akechi was being pompous or just honest. As he thought it over, Ren carefully withdrew the card from Akechi's hand and spun it around to read. "You're a detective?" he asked, reading the card.  
  
"Surprised?"  
  
Ren tucked the card into his pants' pocket, and slipped his hand inside, too. "Just a little. You seem a little young for it."  
  
"A juvenile prodigy's terms of service _does_ include youth as a necessary requirement." He cast an appraising look at Ren, eying him from head to toe. "Similar to a juvenile delinquent, I suppose."  
  
_Was that an insult?_ Ren tilted his head, thinking. "What do you want?" he asked, wondering out loud.  
  
"Merely to introduce myself. It only seemed fair, seeing as I watched your hearing." Akechi tugged idly on his left hand glove, adjusting the fit.  
  
"That was thoughtful of you."  
  
"You think so?" Akechi smiled once more. Just like before, it didn't reach his eyes. "To be honest, there is another motive influencing my decision." He paused, giving Ren time to respond if he so wished. When the other boy said nothing, Akechi continued. "I know it may seem like an offer given too late, but... if there's any way I can be of help to you in the future, please feel free to contact me." He gestured to the pocket where Ren had stored the card. "You have both my personal email and mobile phone number to reach me at your leisure. I may not answer right away, but I will get back to you as quick as I can."  
  
Ren's mouth moved without the careful filter of his thoughts. "Where were you when I needed you?"  
  
Akechi's eyebrows rose at such a statement. And then, to Ren's surprise, Akechi laughed. It was a soft, pleasing sound. "Well... I'm here _now_ , aren't I? Shouldn't that be enough?"  
  
"That's not what I—" Ren felt his words stumble as he stammered over both his explanation and apology. Shame and the deep, molten burn of self-loathing always made his tongue feel two sizes too large for his mouth—which was exactly why he barely talked unless it was one on one, with someone he trusted. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."  
  
"I'd much rather an awkward truth than a kind lie," Akechi said. He looked right into the heart of Ren's eyes. "It's no bother. Really."  
  
"... Right," Ren heard himself say, nodding. "Okay." He chewed on his lip. "Thank you."  
  
"So. Do we have a deal?"  
  
Ren hesitated. "I guess so..."  
  
Akechi tilted his head. "But?" he asked, accurately guessing the unspoken word.  
  
"But what do you get out of it?"  
  
"Consider it a way to make up for not being there to help you before," he said. "And also consider it a hand extended in friendship. I live and work out of Shibuya these days—close enough to help should you require anything."  
  
"That's nice of you, but—"  
  
"But you're going to say it's not necessary. Right?"  
  
Were his thoughts really that obvious?  
  
"I'd hardly consider you an open book, but I do feel safe in my assumptions as to your line of thought," Akechi said, once more eerily pinpointing Ren's unspoken words. "I won't browbeat you into a decision. Just know that I'm available for you—I can even offer a few suggestions on local restaurants that would be worth your time."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Everyone needs a hobby to keep themselves happy," Akechi said, shrugging. He held out his hand once again, and this time his smile reached his eyes. The polite, carefully crafted mask that he'd worn for the duration of their conversation had now vanished completely, revealing a young man who seemed truly eager to make and maintain Ren's acquaintance.  
  
Without hesitating, Ren slipped his hand back into Akechi's—and let out a low gasp. Something warm and sharp passed between their hands when they touched, moving down his legs and wrapping around his spin. He reeled on his feet, but stayed standing. Akechi's grip on Ren's hand was strong, sudden, as if he were supporting a weight that went deeper than Ren's bones.  
  
Ren could barely hear Akechi's parting words. "It was nice to meet you. And I look forward to hearing from you soon."  
  
"Right. Yeah. Same to you."  
  
Akechi turned on his heel and walked away, his footsteps drowning out the low murmur of all the other voices in the corridor. Ren watched him leave, unable to make sense of the odd twinge that pricked at his heart with every bit of distance that grew between them, almost as if the space itself were a yawning, gaping ache.  
  
He shook his head. _Get a grip._ Ren shoved his hands into his pocket, hunched his shoulders, and stomped to the courthouse doors, where a gray, sunless day greeted him. His parents didn't say a word as he pried open the door and climbed into the backseat, and he spent the rest of the drive home in silence, opening and closing the hand that Goro had held so tight.


	3. Purest Feeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe this is what luck looks like—or fate. He smiled at the word. Fate. It sounded so absolute, so decisive, and yet it operated on the same principals of faith. To believe in fate, one had to put their whole, unshakeable trust in the universe to set up a sequence of events that would favor them directly. Almost as if the universe itself, like a god, could give a damn about a mortal’s misery.
> 
> Goro had read somewhere once that the gods laugh because suffering is a human thing, which they will never understand. Perhaps fate was the same way, but instead of laughing, it felt pity.

**April 9th, 20XX**

Being wanted, truly wanted, must be the purest feeling in the world.

Or so Goro assumed, anyway. He had yet to experience such a thing for himself, much less find someone to feel that way for without some convoluted complication involved. But he _did_ have an imagination, a rather active one at that. It didn’t get much use outside of his work, the essays he had to write for class exams, or even the purported “tell all” interviews he was starting to give with gossip magazines, but when all was said and done, and when Goro found himself alone with the quiet, hollow cavern of his thoughts, he still gave in to a few fantasies now and then.

Well, just the _one_ fantasy: someone, just one single person, who would truly want him around. Preferably a boy his age. One who understood anger and loneliness, and how to survive their poison. In this country of millions, in this _city_ of millions, in a ward of several hundred thousand people crammed together, shoulder to shoulder, but so rarely looking each other eye to eye, or heart to heart—this one boy would, without a shadow of dreadful doubt, stand by Goro’s side, offering him a hand to hold.

An idle delusion, of course. Hopeless. Harmless. And yet his heart was always heavier once the daydreams were through.

Strange. What was the point of them, then?

For the third time in the past fifteen minutes, Goro pulled his phone from his pocket and thumbed the button to turn on the display. No messages. The same as before. He stared at the stark black and white display of the empty screen and the large crisp white digital clock. His apartment seemed suddenly far too large and lonely.

And the minutes passed.

And the minutes passed.

He wasn’t disappointed. No. Why would he be? Why _should_ he be?

A muscle under Goro’s left eye began to twitch. He shut his eyes. Took a breath, held it in, closely cradling the stillness.

His phone buzzed once, twice. Goro opened his eyes—but the phone in his hand was still blank, the screen dimmed. And the buzzing continued.

 _Ah. I see._ It was the _other_ phone. A “burner,” replaceable and mostly untraceable. They were all the rage overseas, and even locally with drug dealers and other unsavory sorts. Shido-san’s network of information and assets would be impressive if it weren’t so reprehensible. He never failed to meet Goro’s lowest expectations—indeed, Shido-san almost seemed hellbent on doing all he could to find new ways to disappoint and disgust Goro.

The burner phone continued to buzz, as insistent as a jab in the ribs. Goro took a breath, forced a smile on his face, and finally answered the phone. “Yes?”

“Your talents are needed.”

Goro’s smile flickered at the edges. He knew that voice. The Special Investigation Unit Director’s voice was damnably unpleasant, equal parts pompous and sycophantic. It was the shamelessly self-assured tone of a man who thrived in the shadow, while convinced he could cast his own.

“What’s the name?” he asked. No need to ask _why_ he was needed; there was only ever one reason why his _gift_ was required, and he had long ago decided he didn’t want to know any extra information about these orders. Just the names and their faces would do fine. Anythinig else would only be distractions, an unnecessary burden that would take the focus away from actually _doing_ the job.

“Nakamura Ken. I'll be sending a photo shortly.”

 “That's easy enough to remember.”

“Do you need the spelling?”

Goro shook his head. “That won’t be necessary,” he said, pulling a pen and notepad closer so he could write down the name. The strange Nav on his phone, the one that helped bring his powers to life, was curiously generous when it came to name variations. The few times Goro had tested it out on random names—his neighbors in the apartment, a few journalists from the newspapers—he had always managed to find their Shadows without fail or mistakes. Of course, he had always retreated from these Shadows upon discovering them—and he also knew just enough information about them to know he had found his target… He hoped nothing would go wrong this time.

“Is there anything else I need to know?”

“This needs to be done immediately. Within a day at most.”

Goro tapped his pen against the notepad in sharp, quick jabs. “That doesn’t leave much time.”

“Then you’d better get started, yes?”

He slapped the pen to the table. “Should I report back to you or-?”

“I don’t think we need to bother our superior with the trivial details,” the Director sneered. “Your success will be readily known to all—as will your failure, should that come to pass.”

The muscle under Goro’s eye twitched again. “There’s no need for that tone. I’ve never let him down yet.”

“ _Yet_ ,” the Director repeated. “You have your orders. See to them.”

The call cut out, leaving Goro with his seething temper and nowhere to release it. He clenched his fingers around the phone, and then grit his teeth as he watched another message come in—it was the photo of Nakamura.

As he slowly returned his phone to his pocket, Goro felt his mind begin to ever so slightly… _slip_. As if his thoughts, his focus, his very ability to think and reason and exist at all were a withered, crumbling cliff, drifting piece by piece into the yawning maw that opened beneath him. This slip, this gradual dissolution, was a mouth ever open, ready to consume.

 _Relax. Focus. Breathe._ It was just a job. Nothing more, nothing more. Just a job. A task for a tool barely worth any devoted thought at all.

Just a job. Not even his first.

So what was his problem? What was _wrong_ with him now, here?

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

“I can do this,” Goro heard himself say. “I _have_ done this before. It’s fine. _I’m_ fine.”

A dull, persistent ache slid around the hinges of his jaw, past his temples, and up to the crown of his forehead. His head was a crowned cage of pain, sudden and impossible to ignore. Goro pinched the bridge of his nose, shut his eyes, and took a breath. “I can do this,” he said again, repeating the words like a prayer. “I _have_ —”

His cellphone—his _actual_ phone—let out a sharp chime. A text message.

 _Probably just Niijima._ The list of contacts that would reach out to Goro on this device could be counted on one hand—hell, on three _fingers_. And out of that trio, only the prosecutor kept up any consistent communication.

Steeling himself for yet another disappointment, Goro took out his phone and unlocked it without delay. The message was from a number he didn’t recognize, but the text itself was brief, polite, and clearly not spam.

_It’s Amamiya. Sorry to be so sudden. I arrived in Shibuya today, and thought of you. Hope you’re well._

Carefully, slowly, Goro read the message again. _Thought of you._ His heart pushed greedily into his throat, making it hard to breathe.

_Thought of you._

The screen dimmed. Fingers shaking, Goro tried three times to unlock his phone, finally managing on the fourth attempt

Someone had thought about him. He smiled.

What a complete change from only a few minutes ago, as if his moods were a flurry of moths swaying between any available light, the brighter and more blinding, the better. And it was all thanks to Amamiya—

No. Thanks was the wrong word for it. It was all Amamiya’s _fault._

Goro’s forehead let out another sharp sudden ache, keeping in time with his pulse. He clenched his jaw and ground his teeth hard enough to hear them click. _So he was thinking of me—so what?_

 _So plenty_ , the quiet, hurting, hopeful part of him spoke up. It was the same part that still clung to his child’s fantasy of being wanted. Wasn’t this exactly what he wanted? Wasn’t this exactly what he’d been _hoping_ for? Amamiya had _thought_ of him, and not only that, he’d taken the time to tell Goro about it.

But why?

With a tight sigh, Goro pushed himself out of his chair and stretched his arms over his head. The bones in his shoulders let out a satisfying pop, and a little bit of the pressure in his neck dissipated, bringing with it a few moments of relief.

Did Amamiya need a reason to be kind? Not really. Maybe that was just how the serious-faced, gray-eyed, newly made criminal behaved towards others. Or maybe Goro was just desperate to explain something he couldn’t understand.

 _Maybe this is what luck looks like—or fate._ He smiled at the word. _Fate._ It sounded so absolute, so decisive, and yet it operated on the same principals of faith. To believe in fate, one had to put their whole, unshakeable trust in the universe to set up a sequence of events that would favor them directly. Almost as if the universe itself, like a god, could give a damn about a mortal’s misery.

Goro had read somewhere once that the gods laugh because suffering is a human thing, which they will never understand. Perhaps fate was the same way, but instead of laughing, it felt pity.

He scoffed. If those were his options—pity and mockery—he would rather be laughed at. Scorn was something Goro understood completely. It was sympathy he didn’t know what to do with, even though he craved it more than anything.

 _The purest feeling…_ He shook his head, but his smile remained. _What a silly, stupid ache._

 

After a tense talk and a half-assed farewell, Ren watched from the ground floor window as his guardian, Sakura Sojiro, locked up Leblanc and disappeared down the side street. The café had a quiet, charming atmosphere; the gentle ticking of the wall clock was as comforting as a metronome, and everything from the colored lamps hanging over the booths to the wood paneling and narrow, sleek chairs lined up against the counter gave off the impression of complete coziness.

Pity that Sakura-san was the exact opposite.

 _No sense lingering._ Ren turned on his heel and retreated to the back of the shop. The narrow stairs leading up to his attic room creaked and groaned with every step, and little clouds of dust rose and swirled around his shoes as he walked.

As Ren looked out across his bedroom, he tucked his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “Well… it’s better than a prison cell,” he muttered. He had a habit of talking to himself, especially out loud. It helped that he was often alone and couldn’t be overhead, but ever since he was arrested and dragged into court, his one-sided, one-man conversations were always held in hushed tones and terse, short sentences. The incident had intruded upon his life like a cancer, tumescent and all-consuming. His memories were muddled, as if seen through a foggy glass. And his thoughts were now too quick, each decision hastily made, as if he were trying to close himself off from his own company.

_Not gonna get far with that._

Ren sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “I’m thinking too much.” Granted, he had an awful lot to think about. Moving from Mishima up the coast to start a new life in Tokyo was the kind of stuff he read about in light novels or saw on dramas—to actually be living it was something else. Surreal, somehow. But also undeniable. This was _his life_ , and yet so much of it had been taken entirely out of his hands.

Helpless was the smallest word for how he felt. And he couldn’t even _ask_ someone for advice or guidance. There was no one to count on. No adult, no friend, no one who cared at all.

...Well, there _was_ Akechi…

Ren shrugged out of his blazer and tossed it onto the couch. He kicked off his shoes and slowly undid the buttons of his shirt, starting with the wrist cuffs. _Akechi_ …

As he stepped out of his jeans, he checked his phone. No messages. He tossed it onto the bed and left it alone, focusing instead on getting changed. It was early, sure, but he’d had one hell of a strange fucking day. Sleep might not change that, but it _would_ give him enough distance to put the day's oddness behind him.

_Like that dream vision... thing._

Fiddling with the drawstring of his sweatpants, Ren chewed on the corner of his lip and flopped back onto his bed. Just what the hell happened at the crosswalk today? He’d expected chaos at Shibuya, sure. The crush and sway of bodies criss-crossing from corner to corner, covering every spare inch of the intersection, made Ren feel both hopelessly small and strangely safe. Anonymous. Ignorable. He’d never had this kind of privacy in public back in Mishima, but the mass of people was far from the strangest thing—a monster, a demon? Something bright and electric blue, a flurry of flame and shadow, blooming in the air, becoming a wicked smile and snake-slit eyes.

What the hell _was_ that?

Ren shut his eyes. His imagination _had_ to be at fault. He wasn’t what he’d call a daydreamer, but he did fall into the trap of his thoughts more often than not. Overthinking didn’t even cover the full extent of how much time Ren spent inside his own mind.

But even so… thinking too much didn’t explain a full-blown hallucination. And that wasn’t even the worst of it: time had _stopped completely_ , freezing every single person in mid-step, mid-laugh, mid-word. And then, just as quickly, the world returned to normal. As if nothing had happened.

Even so, Ren still couldn't shake the feeling that he had somehow seen into the seams of the world, that he had stumbled upon a dark corner that, when peeled back, would reveal a whole hidden secret buried beneath. A place of magic and monsters and impossibilities.

He frowned. It didn’t make any damn sense. Why here? Why Shibuya—and why had it happened to _him_?

Ren sighed. Thinking was getting him nowhere. Maybe he should sleep and hope his brain would make some sense of it in the night, without his conscious input. He shifted onto his side, laughing to himself. If only all of his problems could be solved by simply climbing into bed and waiting for dreams to distract him.

Minutes passed, and still sleep eluded him. Yongen-Jaya was noisier than his hometown; every little sound demanded his attention. The distant hiss of traffic and the nearby murmur of indistinct chatter; the rumbling of the local coin-laundry, the click and groan of the sliding doors of the bathhouse; the low, mournful mewl of a stray cat—all of it combined into a soundtrack designed to keep sleep at bay.

Ren snatched up his pillow and slammed it over his head. _  
_

Half an hour later, just as he was starting to nod off, his phone let out a heart little chirp. _Great. Perfect._ Ren fumbled in his bed, patting down the blankets in his quest to silence his cell.

He stared at the screen, blinked, and then sat up with a start. It was a message—from Akechi.

_Good to hear from you, Amamiya-kun. I hope your trip up from Mishima was pleasant. Maybe after you’ve settled in, we can meet up again in person? I have a promise to keep, after all._

Ren’s left hand began to tingle. Little bursts of warmth bloomed from his fingertips and inched up past his knuckles until it spilled like a stain over his palm. His heart did a sudden eager leap against his chest, knocking against his ribs. He read the message through again two times more. These were the nicest words anyone had said to him in weeks. Of all people to treat him like a person instead of a problem, it had to be a detective, and an almost total stranger.

But why? What did Akechi gain from this kindness? Ren hoped he wasn’t just keeping an eye on him out of suspicion alone.

Ignoring another sudden lurch from his heart, Ren quickly typed out his reply. _Sounds good. Thank you for making the time for me._

Akechi’s response was quick. _It’s no trouble at all. Please keep in touch._

Ren smiled—his first in almost a month. He set his phone down and tried once again to get comfortable in his bed. Akechi’s words swirled around his head, filling his thoughts with a soothing, quiet calm, like a soft voice speaking to him from the dark. _It’s no trouble at all._

_I have a promise to keep._

A promise… an oath, a vow… Ren’s eyelids became heavy, and with a curiously buoyant heart, he gradually slid into the dark depths of sleep. His last thought before his dreams claimed him was how lucky he was to have an acquaintance like Akechi—and how little sense it made at all. As if pure chance and the fickle winds of fate took pity on him this one and only time, giving him a friend that was exactly what he needed...

 

That night, both boys, without the other knowing it, came to the same conclusion in the private sanctuaries of their hurting hearts. Fate was like faith, and faith was just hope given a divine purpose. And hope was the purest feeling, clean and clear like glass—and yet so terribly breakable. Hope was a fragile state of being so vulnerable it almost demanded destruction.

But even so, even with their hope so new and raw and frail, they were glad to have it, just as they were glad to have each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i took a few little liberties with this chapter:
> 
> 1: i gave a name to the train conductor that goro has to target because i already have too many male pronouns flying around this fic. distinguishing one just made it easier.  
> 2: i know that the tweest of the game involves goro's phone being bugged, but i figured he'd keep a burner phone for dealing with shido's associates, and keep his calls to shido directly on his personal line.  
> 3: i made ren's hometown mishima, in shizuoka, because i studied there and it was great and nice.
> 
> ahhhhh h it's hard to write in the perspective of not one but TWO young men. i'm so used to having flowery introspective female protags to write as, but with goro AND ren--the rationalizing, compartmentalizing king and the quiet, reserved charming rogue--i have my work totally cut out for me. ;;


	4. In Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Beldam looks like a mixture of [Sister Friede from Dark Souls III](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/darksouls/images/9/99/Sister_Friede_-_01.png/revision/latest?cb=20170324234745) and the [Other Mother's second form from Coraline](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/1/12/The_Other_Mother.png/revision/latest?cb=20160226214110).
> 
> The lyrics to [the song that accompanies this chapter is pretty important](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfWHfiEZLxc), so give it a listen please~ (open the link in a new tab!)

**Nature is violent**  
The nature of the beast is violent  
You know that  
And someone else  
Another one that wasn't me, no—

\-- Nine Inch Nails, "In Two"

* * *

 

 

**April 10 th, 20XX**

It took Goro three hours until he was comfortable enough to fall asleep, but his thoughts were chasing themselves in a spiral, snapping and snarling like hounds. Each time he closed his eyes, the darkness of Mementos greeted him. The hideous, swirling whirls of scarlet and the bone and gristle tracks on the floor mixed with the golden wide eyes of Nakamura's Shadow for position as the most distressing scenery Goro had seen recently. And no matter what he did he couldn't ignore it, couldn't push the sight from his mind. Whether his eyes were open or shut he saw it, the deep, glistening black like a bleeding shadow, and it kept repeating, anD IT KEPT REPEATING AND REPEATING AND REPEATING AND—

Goro opened his eyes and woke in a familiar dream.

_The Velvet Room._

The attendant, a strangely maternal woman known only as the Beldam, smiled at him. She raised her segmented arm and dropped a 100-yen coin into the slot at the base of her throat. Just before the machine that was her chest could swallow it up, she yanked the coin loose with a simple tug on the gossamer thread tied to her finger, cheating the system that demanded she pay for the privilege to speak.

“Welcome back, crownless prince,” came the calliope chime of her voice, her mouth sliding up and down, open and shut.

The Beldam’s mechanical mouth and chin were the only part of her face that Goro could see, both now, here, in this dream, and in every other dream that she’d been in before. Her white shawl and black hood obscured her eyes—if she even _had_ eyes—and the austere clothes and her stern aura made her look like a Catholic nun. She even had a little wooden rosary tied to a rope belt around her waist. It clacked with every small movement she made, which wasn’t often.

The Beldam seemed to preserve her movement for special occasions—not that Goro could recognize a pattern to them yet. Maybe it was too much to hope that there _was_ a pattern; it was too hard to tell, and too much to ask, considering the utter strangeness of the Velvet Room.

Even calling this place a _room_ was generous. It seemed more like a cellar designed by a rather bizarre interior decorator. The room had an eerily polished black and white-checkered floor, an eggshell pale ceiling, and crumbling plaster walls reinforced with steel sections. It looked like a fallout shelter, a room built to withstand and endure. A sanctuary for survival that also felt suffocating.

The Beldam slid the 100-yen coin into the slot below her neck and pulled it free again. The gears in her throat whirred, and the calliope tinkle of her voice sounded again. “You look worried—are you perhaps claustrophobic? What is it about—about—”  she stammered, running out of her voice. Goro watched as she frowned, slid the coin in, then tugged it free again. “What is it about closed spaces that bothers you so?”

“There’s only so much air in here," he said. "And there’s no ventilation system. Whoever designed this place clearly did not have any long-term living in mind.”

“This is a dream, crownless prince. Why would you need—need—need—” Coin. Click. “Why would you need to breathe here?”

Was that a serious question? “This is too real to be _just_ a dream,” Goro countered. “And Igor said it himself, remember? Back when we all first met. _‘This is a place between mind and matter. Between dream and reality._ ’” He still vividly remembered the unnervingly deep voice and wide, watchful eyes of the man who’d greeted him on his first trip to the Velvet Room. That was years ago now—so long ago that it felt almost like another life, dreamed up by another boy, helpless and hopeless.

Coin. Click. “Yes... You are bound here. But isn’t that always better? Better to be bound and safe, rather than free and in pain—pain—pain—”

Goro flinched. The wooden chair beneath him creaked.

And the Beldam continued to smile, her narrow, wooden lips moving further towards the edges of her cheeks. How many teeth did she _have_?

 _What would happen when her smile ran out of room on her face?_ Goro wondered. _Would her face simply crack, or would that smile continue on?_  He stared at her, at this strange being with no name, just a title. She didn’t ever say _his_ name, just the honorific she’d assigned to him: _Crownless prince._

Goro eyed his only companion with renewed curiosity. Why was she _here_?

So many questions, and yet he had no voice to ask them. Every breath he had was better spent on keeping his anger at bay. Goro’s temper was an ever-active fire, kindled with every thought, doused with every breath. It was part of the reason he smiled in public so much: a forced grin a day kept the simmering, silent fury at bay.

But that was over _there_ , on the other side, in the Waking World. In this world, born from the dark seams threaded through nightmare and dreams, Goro had no reason to smile at all—especially since there was no one to hide from or deceive.

The Beldam had once said it best herself. _“The best Tricksters lie with a smile, never saying a word.”_ That was months ago—or was it years? Time was a flat circle that mattered little, with few, if any, distinctions. A day never seemed to end, and nights were just a restless stretch of lonely shadows.

Goro pressed his face into his hands. Where had he heard those words before—before the Beldam? Was it a book—some silly manga? He shook his head. No… that wasn’t it. He could _hear_ the words in a voice that was nothing like the Beldam’s mechanical chime. But this voice was distorted somehow, like a radio signal struggling through a roar of static... _“A face is a mask that never comes off—take care who you let look beneath it._

… Was it a man’s voice? _Whose_?

Goro lowered his hands.

The Beldam’s smile hadn't faded an inch.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, his voice sounding far more calm than he felt.

Slowly, with the halting metallic clicks of a clockwork, the Beldam tilted her head. Goro heard the gears in her throat start to clink together again. The hinge of her jaw moved forward and back, continuing in its simulacrum of speech. “Company’s coming over soon, Your Highness. Won’t that be nice?”

 _No._ “You mean Igor?”

Coin. Click. “He _lives_ in this world. One is hardly a guest in their own home.”

 _I wouldn’t know._ “So who else would come here? Igor said this place belonged to me.”

Coin. Click. “A heart held aloft by the wings of rebellion, eager to break—break—break—” her voice skipped like a scratched record on a phonograph. Coin. Click. “—to break the chains which bind him to ruin.”

Goro’s hands tightened on his knees. _Could it be…?_ “So this guest is a male?”

Coin. Pull. “Yes. Aren’t you glad?"

“I am, in fact. Unless he ends up being another self-operating automaton,” Goro said. He knew he wasn’t being polite, but that hardly mattered. “I’m afraid I’ve had my fill of those for now.” His smile was a little delayed, but he didn’t mind much. The worst the Beldam could ever do was rise out of her chair and tower over him, her segmented limbs and hips clicking and ticking as all her parts obeyed the command of her cogs and gears. Metal machine muscles—unsettling, yes, but hardly threatening.

Well, there _was_ that half a year where she scuttle-crawled on the floor like a spider, her black and blue velvet dress spilling behind her like a stain. But Goro had a hunch that she did it simply to frighten him… though he couldn’t remember why she would want to… or if he’d even dared her to. Theirs wasn’t exactly an amicable relationship—strained and civil, yes. But certainly not nice enough to warrant any kind of teasing.

Goro pushed himself to his feet. “Where should I meet him?” he asked, half to himself. “And how’s he going to get in?”

The Beldam kept her own counsel and said nothing.

With a sigh, Goro looked around. There was too much empty space in this fallout shelter, yet it was still sparsely furnished. There were no windows, no doors. There wasn’t even much furniture in here; just a couple rickety wooden chairs, their vinyl cushions torn and spewing white stuffing like overgrown mold, and the oft-ignored blue velvet couch with its matching box-edged pillows and gold painted wooden frame. The only odd decoration in the shelter was a strange bucket-head knight cobbled together from a shovel, a broomstick, and a bucket used to contain the sudsy slop used to mop. Years ago, when Goro first came to the Velvet Room, this makeshift knight would sometimes talk to him, speaking in the exaggeratedly lofty voice that often followed the episodes to Phoenix Ranger Featherman R.

It didn’t speak anymore, though. Goro missed it. Sometimes.

Sometimes an end table and a lamp fringed in black feathers would appear in the room as well, but that was only ever when a small scrap of paper sat waiting for Goro on the table. He didn’t know where the table and lamp went when they weren’t needed, nor did he know where the papers came from. The Beldam had no answers save for her wide, enigmatic smile, and the papers themselves were merely pieces of a riddle, just scraps torn from a greater whole.

As he examined the room, this bizarre little interstitial outpost made for him and him alone, Goro rose from his chair and strode slowly over to the wall behind the Beldam. All the papers he’d received so far were hung up here, stuck in place by the teeth of the Beldam’s hairpins and her long black hair.

 _“It's for safekeeping,”_ her clunky, calliope voice had said.

 _“You didn’t have to go through the trouble,_ ” he’d replied, his eyes taking in the blank, black empty slots where her teeth should have been.

The Beldam's head whirled slowly on the stem of her neck, turning until her chin was hovering over the ridges over her spine. “ _Don’t you know, Your Highness? There is always a price to pay. Oaths of blood. Crossed hearts. Pinkie promises. Swearing on souls and graves.”_

It was an eerie memory. If Goro wasn't so preoccupied with other troubles, he had no doubt he'd have nightmares about the Beldam. He crossed his arms over his chest, frowned, and approached the first piece of paper stuck on the wall.

Each paper seemed like a page ripped from a storybook, a homemade, hand-bound fairytale complete with scribbles and messy penmanship, the hiragana all tilted like trees in a storm. Every curve, every stroke, was a mess and a little hard to read. Sometimes the sentences were composes in a series of deep gouges, while others were just a light pen scrape. The inconsistency gave the impression of a hurting heart bleeding out through a hasty hand. Hopeless. Helpless. Childish.

A muscle in Goro’s jaw began to ache as he clenched his teeth. He leaned in close and began to read.

_Once upon a time there was a brave little prince. All he wanted was to be loved, but—_

There was a page missing. Goro moved down the wall until he found the next piece of paper.

_—ma died in a bath of blood, so the brave little prince was sent to—_

Page missing.

_—obeyed, but the King refused to like him—_

Missing.

_—obeyed, but the King still punished him—_

Missing.

 _—obeyed, but the King still sent him away. And yet, the boy—_ Missing _—faithful—_ Missing. Missing. Missing. _End._

Goro heard the soft susurrus of the Beldam’s skirts as she rose from her chair. Coin. Click. “Why don’t you finish it, Your Highness?”

“I’m no writer,” he said, turning to face her. It was a habit, not a courtesy—they could never look each other in the eye, but he didn’t like keeping her at his back.

The Beldam held out her hand. Her segmented fingers curled down into her palm, leaving only her pinkie extended. “Not even for a promise? You could swear on our grave.”

“ _Our_ grave?” he echoed. “I’m too young to die—and you’re not really alive.”

Coin. Click. The Beldam’s smile hardened at the edges. “An eye for an eye,” she said, ever enigmatic. “Tooth for a tooth—a life for a life. Sometimes.”

A grim, if also vague, bit of wisdom. “That’s a rather steep price to pay for a fairytale, don’t you think?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “And I don’t have the time. Didn’t you say company was coming over?”

Coin. Click. “Who?”

“You _know_ who. The guest. My guest.”

Click. Click. “Hamlet,” the Beldam said quietly. “Act One, scene five, lines 168 to 169.”

Goro frowned. More vague answers—and this time she was testing him on one of his weaker subjects: western literature.

Before he could mouth off a spiky-worded reply, however, a klaxon clarion siren sounded throughout the room, drowning out all hopes for his voice to be heard. Golden emergency lights popped out of the wall, splitting the plaster with sharp, echoing cracks. They flashed strobe-like into the room as the siren howl rose louder, painfully so.

Goro clapped his hands to his ears and shut his eyes. “ _Make it stop!_ ” he yelled.

He could barely hear the Beldam’s voice over the clamor. “I can’t.”

The ceiling rumbled overhead, sending bits of dust and plaster cascading in a powdery haze to the checkered floor. Goro opened his eyes in time to see a seam in the ceiling split apart, revealing an ascending narrow staircase leading to an unknown upper floor.

Goro lowered his hands. Still the siren screamed, but it was just white noise, empty static in dead ears. Annoying, yes, and painful to be sure—but he could endure it. Endurance was a simple if not heroic act, one fit for a prince, even a crownless one.

Moving as if every limb were bound by a marionetteer’s conducting string, Goro ascended the new stairs with dazed, heavy steps. The room above the shelter’s main floor was brightly lit and narrow, separated down the middle with a long sheet of glass stretched wall to wall, resting atop a wooden counter.

Goro recognized it at once—a prisoner’s visitor room. It even had the little black phones set against the dividers’ spacing out the partition into even sections. The room on the other side of the glass was a black smear of shadow, but as he looked closely, he thought he could make out someone sitting on the visitor’s side… waiting for him.

Hold on—the _visitor’s_ side? But that meant…

The figure in the shadows leaned forward and tapped their knuckles against the glass, insistent but not impatient.

Again, moving as if he were obeying the pull and force of a web of strings, Goro approached the glass and reached out for the phone. It was glossy black and strangely light in his hand, like a sodden raven’s wing drowned in a deep, devouring river. He held the phone against his ear, his lips skimming the mouthpiece in a breathless, quivering kiss. “… Hello?”

The shadows swarming around his visitor began to recede, like ink dissolving into water. A familiar face Goro was already too fond of emerged from the darkness, gray-eyed and fluffy haired.

“Amamiya!” Goro would know that face anywhere.

The other boy smiled, wicked, wild, and so damnably distracting. “So what are you in for?” he asked, and it was only then that Goro noticed what the other boy was wearing: a tattered prisoner’s uniform, all dingy white and time-worn black stripes.

“Surviving,” Goro said. “You?”

“Saving the world,” was Ren’s reply. "Or myself. Not sure. It's not very clear."

Goro frowned, thinking. “That’s not much of a sin—crime, I mean.” True justice may judge the contents of a soul, but the law had yet to reach such lofty, divine ambitions.

“I could say the same to you,” Ren said.

Goro said nothing, not wanting to disagree. When he did speak again, he was startled by the words that came out of his mouth. “When you live your life by another’s rules, you don’t get to choose what that life is worth.”

Ren studied him with a careful gaze, quick and keen like a balm made to cure an ache. How could someone else’s eyes see so much, and show such precise focus without ever feeling too sharp and cruel?

And why did Goro like it so much?

“And you’re okay with that?” Ren asked.

Goro shook his head. “Not at all,” he said. "But that hardly matters."

Slowly, as if wading through deep water, Ren lifted his hand and held it to the glass. After a moment, Goro did the same, lining up his fingers and palm to fit precisely against Ren’s own.

“I’ll help if I can. If you’d like. Just say the word.”

“What word?”

“Please, maybe?” Ren teased, his dark gray eyes twinkling with playful mischief. “Or how about my name—my first name. No honorifics.”

Goro’s heart kept up a steady beat against his chest. That hopelessly hysterical organ was ever at war with his head, as if even his pulse were enough cause for an argument. Too often did he feel split between them, a boy torn in two by his own mutinous mind and stubbornly sabotaging spirit.

“Ren,” he whispered, trying out the sound. He liked the way the other boy’s name fit into his mouth, as if it belonged there somehow, a missing piece made to heal a hurting, open wound.

“Yes?”

Goro leaned in until his lips were nearly kissing the glass. “Call me by my name, too. Please.”

Ren moved closer on his side of the glass. Their eyes met in a long stare, and it was as if there was nothing standing between them—no glass, no divider, no secrets or lies or hidden hurts and forgotten truths. It was just the pair of them bound together in this moment, though they sat in two separate sides.

“Goro,” Ren whispered, and the sound sent a shiver down the crownless prince’s spine, like a bead of ice melting against the sudden heat of his skin. “I can’t stay for long,” he continued, his eyes never wavering from Goro’s own. “I’m only out temporarily, on good behavior.”

“Says who?”

“My wardens,” he laughed. “Don’t you have them, too?”

“Do you mean the Beldam?” Goro asked.

Ren frowned. “Is that what they look like to you?” he whispered.

The siren sounded again, louder this time—and it continued, louder, and louder anD LOUDER, AND IT KEPT REPEATING AND REPEATING AND REPEATING AND—

 

Goro’s alarm tore him from the deep, dream-heavy sleep. He sat up in his bed and stared at the empty walls. “Ren,” he whispered, cracking the silence.

Likewise, a few train-stops away, Ren groaned and stirred awake, his brain a fog filled with a haze of blue velvet, a promise, and a name.  “Goro.” It tasted like honey in his mouth, rich, warm, undeniable.

 

[text, sent April 11th – 5:23 AM] Good morning, Akechi-kun.  
[text, received April 11th – 5:24 AM] Good morning. And good luck today, Amamiya-kun.  
[text, sent April 11th – 5:37 AM] Thanks. You too, if you need it.

 

[text, drafted April 11th \- 5:49 AM] Romeo and Juliet, Act Three, scene one, line 98. 

“I’d better not bother him with that,” Goro muttered, closing out of both the message and his web search results. “He’s got enough to worry about as it is.”

 

The rest of the day passed in a gray blur, just like the rain pouring down in sleek, chilly sleets. And soon, distracted by their own troubles, both boys were too preoccupied to think about each other at all for the rest of the day.

A week passed with silence stretching between them like a languid cat. Gradually, with the timid approach of a newfound fascination, both Goro and Ren began to wonder about each other again, and though they still did not speak, every night they stood hand to hand, face to face, divided by a solid wall of glass, bound by the thread of their shared dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi my name's Krist and I like writing psychological horror / magical realism / fairytales and romance. Hope you like it.
> 
> Kudos and credit to my buddy Sirea who first put forth the idea that Goro's Velvet Room would be a fallout shelter: a place where you were meant to outlast your enemy, but a place that could also never be self-sustaining.
> 
> Hamlet, Act One, scene 5, lines 168 to 169 are: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." If you've had an English lit course, you should know what that means.
> 
> Romeo and Juliet, Act Three, scene 1, line 98 is: "Oh, I am Fortune's fool!"


	5. Black Noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a prose-heavy/introspective chapter. I promise the next one's gonna have more dialogue and shippiness, instead of mopey angst.

**April 29 th, 20XX**

“By the way,” Shido said, his voice sliding into an unusually warm tone. He almost sounded sincere. “I caught some of your interview earlier this evening.”

Goro’s throat tightened like his fists. “I’m… I’m grateful that you made the time.”

“I only saw the last few minutes of it, I’m afraid,” Shido continued, pausing long enough to let his words—and their resulting disappointment—sink in. “But it seems you can hold your own in the spotlight. Well done.”

Only a few seconds passed in silence, but to Goro they felt like hours. “That’s high praise coming from you, sir,” he heard himself say.

“Even so, there’s no way to predict just how you’re going to be seen from now on. It’s just as likely that you’ll be both a media darling and a future scapegoat. But I have faith in your competence.”

A strange ache swelled up in Goro’s chest. It wasn’t pain, no, and it wasn’t even anger—it was something else… something bittersweet, like a mixture of nostalgia and weariness.

And then Shido spoke again, and the ache dissolved into a familiar seething pain. “Besides, you’d hardly embarrass yourself _now_ , after all the work I’ve done to make you what you are,” he said, his tone clipped, his words leaving no room for a discussion—or a plea for mercy. “Failure would be a poor way to repay me, wouldn’t you agree?”

A quick series of images pressed themselves against Goro's thoughts. Short black hair, thin glasses. A woman's voice, sharp, clinical, detached. _"He has the potential."_ Shido's smile, crooked and sharp like a sickle.

All the air seemed to leak out of Goro's lungs. When he spoke, his voice was a rasp, withered and dry and dead. “… Yes, sir.”

The phone went silent, and then the call ended. Shido never said goodbye, neither in phone nor in face to face conversations. He merely left you in silence, his words sliding like a knife through your head. Without a proper farewell, Goro often felt as if Shido’s voice hadn’t left his thoughts, that the man was still there, crouching, hidden, listening close.

And maybe that was the point. Maybe this deliberate disregard for civility was on purpose.

_Or maybe you’re so desperate for an explanation that you’ll assign one where it doesn’t exist._

Goro dropped his burner phone onto the coffee table and pulled his fingers through his hair. He needed a shower. The hot water and roiling steam wouldn’t change his mood, but it would help alleviate the pressure in his shoulders, the knots of muscle and stress that closed his body up like a snapped trap. That little bit of comfort would go a long way—or at least until he spoke with his father again.

His father. Shido. The word didn’t seem to fit the man. He was the furthest thing from paternal; he was father in name alone, but the word was still all the wrong fit. Glorified sperm donor was more the proper term, but Goro would rather not think of his father in such a position. He had enough troubles as it was.

His mind was still strangely hazy as he undressed and stepped into the shower, and he shut the door separating the shower from the rest of the bathroom with enough force to make the glass quiver in the frame. The shower was a small stall tucked into the corner of the bathroom; just a glass encasement with pale blue tiles, a shelf for body wash and other necessary toiletries, and a small mirror that hung at face level. The glass fogged up quickly, and Goro couldn’t think of a reason why there’d be a mirror in _here_ , when there was another one in its proper place over the sink. Perhaps the previous tenant who owned the place had a narcissist complex.

Perhaps, perhaps. Maybe.

Possibly.

Probably.

Goro’s brain was a constant web of guesswork, predictions, and careful assumptions. He didn’t do it just to be clever—he did it so he could survive.

It’d been this way since he was a child, passed around like hand-me-down clothes from orphanage to orphanage. Every day brought a new, unpredictable challenge Goro was neither ready to face nor able to escape. There was no set pattern to which caretaker would be in that day, or what mood they would be in, or what the other children would say or do. Every hour was a dice roll, difficult to predict but with consequences that were impossible to avoid.

Goro slid his fingers across the mirror, watching as his reflection emerged for a few seconds before the hot water fogged it up again. “I don’t mind it,” he said out loud. It was easier to have courage if he put a voice to the thoughts that struggled to be heard. “I’m better off this way. It’s gotten me this far, and it can take me further still.”

The shower was an unusually quick affair. His habitually diligent skin-care routine would have to wait for tomorrow, or another day, when he had more energy and less bone-weary heaviness weighing him down.

Goro toweled his hair dry, squeezing the excess water out into the cloth. As he dried off the rest his body, his thoughts slid back into the strange, hazy fog, as if a part of him were climbing up to the ceiling to peer down at himself from a safe distance. His mind felt like it was cleaved in two and bound within opposing perspectives. There was the thought that he had no privacy at all, no sanctuary, not even in his own mind; the thought that his mind itself was just a chamber for solitary pensive confinement, a cell upon which any could peer in and clap their eyes onto him—like a prisoner. Like a creature in the zoo.

His other thought was that he was just being ridiculous, of course. There was no presence keeping watch over his mind like a warden, or an over-watchful god—that was just his conscience struggling to survive through all the guilt and anger.

Goro was the furthest thing from a doctor, or a psychologist— _or a cognitive pscientist_ , he thought bitterly, a muscle flickering under his eye—so this was all, unfortunately, just blind speculation.

Feeling penned up inside his own skull, Goro shut his eyes, took a breath, and cleared his throat. “Guilt is not so black and white. A guilty mind assumes all and every eye can see their sin and, as such, will eventually sabotage itself,” he said, repeating a line from the interview. It was one of the only things he’d said that was both true and something to be proud of. “But a guilty heart is its own witness, and so it strives to expunge the stains of sin from within through acts of redemption or public apologies.”

The words' effect was almost immediate. He felt lighter somehow, as if the pressure of his thoughts had abated just a little. Looping the towel around his broad shoulders, Goro stepped out of the bathroom and walked down the hall to his bedroom. Thankfully the window curtains were closed—the last thing he needed was the building across the way to see him walking naked through his own damn home.

The Armory, which was the name of his apartment building, was nestled in between a five-story bookstore and a chiropractor-acupuncture-physical therapy clinic. The apartment was a little further from his school than he’d like to be, but his father— _Shido_ —had insisted that he move in. _“You can keep an eye on the landlord while you’re there—he still owes me a favor and was easily persuaded in taking you on as a tenant.”_

Goro grit his teeth hard enough to make his jaw hurt. Every bit of his life was wound up and wrapped around the cogs and gears of Shido’s machinations. Everywhere he went, Goro had to hear his father’s voice or see his face. Everything he had in this world was thanks to the man who didn’t even recognize Goro’s last name or the traces of his mother that were stamped across his face.

And he had no one to blame but himself.

_You wanted to be here. You have no right to complain._

A sudden, burning impulse to scream seized Goro tightly in its jaws and bit down. He _wanted_ to give in, more than anything—he wanted to let go, to crack through the carefully applied layers of his charisma and let every ugly, bitter feeling bleed through. And it would be so easy to do it—as effortless as breathing, as easy as blinking.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. The rooms in the Armory were all soundproof. No one would hear him. No one would even know—except for himself, of course.

Every step and breath Goro took was almost painfully jarring; his teeth rattled in his head like a broken Thermos, and he moved as if struggling against some hidden, inner weight. He dressed mechanically, still struggling with the urge to claw at his face and scream himself raw.

The minutes passed, and soon so did the urge.

He couldn’t do it. He _wouldn’t_ do it. The Armory was a sanctuary, a cage of peace with unnatural silence applied to it. It was the one place Goro could shut out the rest of the world as if it were no more than a dream, or an illusion—as if the street and the building and the people and the blocks beyond leading to the rest of the ward were nothing more than a lifeless imitation.

Goro shut his eyes, counted back from fifteen, and then opened them again. He opened the curtains and peered down at the street below. A gray, sullen day was dimming into a likewise cloudy night. The road below was dappled with puddles; the few people who braved the street marched dutifully beneath their umbrellas, which moved like little colored mushrooms up and down the road.

Goro's reflection in the window was a glimmer, barely visible save for faint traces of his furrowed brow and pensive expression. The northern half of his bedroom wall was taken up by these double windows. The rest of his bedroom was white, clean, and utterly bare. Spartan, sparse, as if he’d only just moved in. This was his room, his apartment, his _home_. The first home he’d ever had was since his mother was alive. He didn’t know what to do with the place, or how to put his own personal mark upon it. Apart from the briefcase and notebook that bore his trademark symbol—the letter A in a circle like a bullseye—Goro didn’t have many, or any, personal items that really felt like _his_.

For years, besides the clothes on his back, the shoes on his feet, and a battered backpack that was frayed from constant use, Goro never had a single thing to call his own. No knickknacks, no mementos, no memorabilia or personal effects of any kind. Growing up in the orphanage had given him a life stocked with only the temporary. The only thing he could rely on was how the world was _unreliable_. Even the people in his life were impermanent—kids were passed around different homes almost every month, or they simply disappeared without a trace. Workers came and went, and eventually their names and faces bled together into a blur of grim faces and sullen features, pillars of adulthood that only looked down upon the children in their care, never directly into their eyes, on an even level.

The only thing that seemed to stick around in Goro’s life was his bad luck—and the nagging, gnawing bitterness that came with it.

Goro smiled. _The old ball and chain._ He turned to sit down on the edge of his bed. It was too early to go to sleep, and he had homework that needed to be done, as well as a few files from Niijima-san that required his quick attention. But he couldn’t move. His responsibilities pressed at him like eager hands pulling on his sleeves, desperate for his attention, but he was frozen to the spot. And it was getting strangely hard to breathe, though his heart-rate hadn’t increased, and he felt no other noticeable symptoms of panic.

The more sense Goro tried to make of himself, the more he felt like an outsider in his own mind. Ever a guest, never at home. Not in his apartment, not in his thoughts—not even in his dreams.

“That’s not true,” Goro said, gently shattering his own silence. “What about that dream earlier this month—the one with… with Ren in the Velvet Room?” he asked, stumbling over the other boy’s name. They hadn’t yet crossed that gap dividing formality and familiarity—at least, not in the waking world—but he still couldn’t help himself. He _liked_ that name. He liked the way it fit in his mouth, and so he took any chance he could to say it out loud—when he was alone, of course. Often in his bedroom, but sometimes in the shower, too. Depending on his mood. Depending on how needy and lonely—or hungry and eager—he felt.

Goro turned his hands over until his palms were face up in his lap, thinking about their shared dreams in the Velvet Room. He was no closer to understanding _that_ particular vision than he was after it first happened, nor in any of the times it happened since. He was on almost a dozen trips to the Velvet Room, and had shared almost a dozen visits with Ren, and still he couldn’t understand what it meant. He only understood the effect.

Whenever the Velvet Room appeared in his dreams, whenever the sirens screamed and the ceiling split, revealing the moonlit prison visitor’s room above, Goro felt something like anticipation for the first time in his life. Finally, he had something to look forward to—something besides vengeful patricide. Whenever he and Ren peered at each other, eye to eye, face to face, hand to hand—Goro’s lonely, seething, orphaned heart lowered its hackles, hid its teeth, and inched carefully closer to the warmth that Ren offered.

Just as the thought finished sliding through his brain, Goro heard one of his phones start to chime from where he’d left them in the living room. He took his time before he checked which one it was, not wanting to shatter this small cage of peace he’d constructed for himself using only Ren’s name. Finally, he couldn’t ignore the phone any longer, and stood up with a sigh.

Flicking on the hallway and living room lights as he went, Goro pulled his personal mobile out of his coat pocket and peered at the screen.

He smiled. “Speak of the devil and he shall appear,” he murmured with a smile.

It was a message from Ren.

[text, received April 29th – 7:45 PM] Akechi-kun—sorry this is so sudden, but I heard you were on TV?  
[text, sent April 29th – 7:45 PM] Yes, for an interview.  
[text, sent April 29th – 7:46 PM] I was asked to give my expert opinion on a traffic incident—maybe you heard about it?

Goro didn’t know why he’d asked that question. He only knew how wickedly wonderful it felt to do so, all the while knowing he could be free from suspicion. It’s not like Ren had any _reason_ to suspect him in the first place. And there was something almost delightfully hideous about alluding to the stains on his conscience to the boy he’d been not so subtly fantasizing about for over a month.

[text, received April 29th – 7:48 PM] I think so? Something about a train accident?  
[text, sent April 29th – 7:49 PM] Yes, that’s the one. I thought the interview would be a more formal discussion on the difficulties of profiling such unpredictable behavior, but it seems they were more interested in my personal life.   
[text, received April 29th – 7:51 PM] That sounds tough. But I’ll have to check it out.  
[text, sent April 29th – 7:51 PM] Oh? Are you interested?  
[text, received April 29th – 7:52 PM] I might be. So how’d it go?

Goro stared at his phone. Was he serious? 

[text, sent April 29th – 7:52 PM] It was bearable, thank you. I appreciate your concern, Amamiya. And how have you been?

Ren’s reply took some minutes to arrive.

[text, received April 29th – 8:03 PM] Busy. Kind of overwhelmed. Nothing as bad as getting grilled by an entertainment crew for national TV, but still pretty intense. 

A little twinge of instinct flared to life as Goro read the message over again. Maybe he wasn’t the only one carefully omitting truths in this conversation, while also dropping hints that were eager to be heard.

[text, sent April 29th – 8:03 PM] I have time to share if you do. We should talk, face to face.

Again, he had to wait for a reply. 

[text, received April 29th – 8:16 PM] I’m not allowed to leave Leblanc after dark. Not yet, anyway. Boss’s orders.  
[text, sent April 29th – 8:16 PM] ? Leblanc? Boss?  
[text, received April 29th – 8:16 PM] My guardian. He owns and runs the café where I’m staying while I’m on probation.

Goro frowned, thinking. A café? Not a home? Even as his heart throbbed with a sympathetic pang, he couldn’t help but be pleased. So Ren knew how it felt to be an unwelcome guest, too… 

[text, sent April 29th – 8:18 PM] Well at least you’re guaranteed to smell nice with all that coffee brewing.  
[text, received April 29th – 8:18 PM] I’m too close to the source to say, sadly.  
[text, sent April 29th – 8:19 PM] Then shall I be the judge?

Goro had never texted this much—or with this much enthusiasm—for his entire life.

Ren didn’t keep him waiting for long. 

[text, received April 29th – 8:20 PM] I’m free this Sunday, if that works for you?  
[text, sent April 29th – 8:20 PM] Perfect. I look forward to seeing you.  
[text, received April 29th – 8:20 PM] Can I ask you for a favor?

“That depends on what it is,” Goro muttered aloud. 

[text, sent April 29th – 8:21 PM] I’ll try to do it if I can.  
[text, received April 29th – 8:21 PM] If it’s all right with you, I’d like it if we could use our given names. With each other.

The chat window’s bottom half flickered with ellipses as Ren continued to type.

[text, received April 29th – 8:22 PM] You’re already doing me a huge favor by talking TO me instead of DOWN to me. And I really appreciate it.

“I know how _that_ feels,” Goro said.

[text, received April 29th – 8:23 PM] So if there’s any little way I can close that distance with you—

Without reading the rest of the message, Goro quickly typed out his reply.

[text, sent April 29th – 8:23 PM] This favor’s easily done, Ren. I’m happy to do as you ask.  
[text, received April 29th – 8:23 PM] Thank you, Goro.  
[text, sent April 29th 8:24 PM] I’ll see you Sunday, at Central Street.  
[text, received April 29th – 8:24 PM] See you there… or in my dreams. Whichever comes first.

Goro laughed. “Phrasing,” he said, shaking his head. What a strange boy. What a strangely charming boy—who, if Goro’s instincts were anything to go by, was most likely flirting with him.

Maybe.

Possibly

… _Probably._

 

Later that night, after Goro climbed into bed and read over his messages with Ren once again—after a rush of warmth that surged down through his belly and further still—after a quick, grateful thought spared to his soundproof apartment before the rest of his imagination took hold—after he finished and cleaned up and hid his hands beneath his pillow, two dreams waited to devour Goro once he fell asleep.

The first dream was a normal one. Just a blur of want and need and hunger and warmth and something softer hidden beneath the quickly withering bud of lust—something he couldn’t quite describe or even understand. And then the Velvet Room appeared, and all thoughts of desire evaporated.

To make it worse, the Beldam was waiting for him. She handed over another part of the fairytale with her slow, sinuous smile.

Goro unfolded the carefully made creases and read the page.

“This is different from the others,” he said, frowning. “The handwriting is neater—and it actually uses kanji.”

The Beldam simply smiled and said nothing.

Suppressing a sigh, Goro focused his attention on the page once more and read the words over again. _The moral? Man’s great burden is the past. Memories of sin weigh upon you the heaviest, and yet not every heart is worthy of love._

He read the words again and again until he had them memorized. He then handed the paper over to the Beldam, his face a carefully composed mask. “Did you write this?” he asked.

The Beldam didn’t reply. She was too busy pulling out a tooth from her mouth and a chunk of her long black hair. Her hood stayed in place, almost as if it were sewn to her skin.

Coin. Click. “I merely transcribed the words, my prince.”

He hated that mechanical voice. “From what? Or who?”

Coin. Click. “Who _from_?” she corrected gently. “And it is a siren song that is your madness. It is a hidden truth—truth—truth—” she dropped in the coin and pulled it free. “—hidden truth that you cannot erase.”

Goro just barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. “Fine. Don’t answer me.” She may as well have said nothing, for all the sense _that_ answer made.

And yet despite his frustration, and despite the Beldam’s usual infuriating poetic mystery, he couldn’t dismiss her words as easily as he would have liked. There was something familiar about what she’d said, a familiarity that extended as well to the moral ending of the fairytale. Had he read it somewhere before?

But where...?

Goro’s list of acquaintances were remarkably small, and the very few people he spoke to wouldn't even bother with any sort of moral grandstanding or imparting pearls of wisdom. Even so, just like before, he could _hear_ these words—not just in the Beldam’s voice, but in another’s… a man’s tone, a musical, gentle baritone… _A hidden truth that you cannot erase. But this is a price you must pay—so do we have a deal?_

After the Beldam hung up the fairytale’s moral on the wall, Goro approached the paper and read it through one final time. He couldn’t shake the suspicion that he had heard these words before, as if they were part of a lesson he had forgotten, a lesson that would have been better remembered and heeded.

He scraped his teeth along the inside of his cheek hard enough to hurt. What good did any pangs of regret do him _now_? If he’d heard those words before, he certainly didn’t remember when or from who—the memory itself had long dissolved into the black noise of his sundered thoughts. Like an old VCR tape overwritten again and again with recordings, lowering the quality of each image that devoured and conquered all those that came before. Even old manuscripts had techniques like this—like _palimpsest_ , for instance. That particular technique was a sort of printing-press hesitation wound, in which an old manuscript was newly made yet still haunted by the traces of its old, effaced words.

A sudden thought brushed against Goro's mind like a shadowy wing.

What if minds and hearts were the same way?

What if only so much emotion and memory could be contained in either one—where did all the old love and bitterness and longing go?

And what would happen to the mind and heart if these forgotten feelings found some way to return?

As usual, Goro had no answers for himself. As usual, the Beldam offered nothing but her usual, too-wide smile. And for the first time that month, Ren did not visit Goro in his Velvet Room.

 

Goro woke up early that Saturday morning troubled, his mind a riot of shame and smoldering fury.

_Ren. I miss you._

_I hate you._

_Don’t leave me waiting._

_… Don’t leave._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo the chapter count has doubled. I recently replayed P5 and had a lot of great, insightful, inspirational conversations with a good friend of mine, which led to some good meta, which led to me realizing that if I ended this fic at fifteen chapters, it would only be half a story told--much like how P5 feels right now. As I'm playing the Persona 2 games for the first time, I'm also getting inspiration from that, soooooooooooooooooooo........... you get a 30 chapter fic :D/ I hope you don't mind hanging around for the long haul.
> 
> I also apologize for the ABSOLUTE SLOW BURN of these chapters. I promise things are going to pick up, but I wanted to plant some seeds in this chapter and establish an atmosphere before I go full tilt with the indulgent romance later on.


End file.
